Symbols

The six-pointed star

The six-pointed star used in Santo Daime iconography draws on a form far older than any single tradition, read within the church as six spiritual qualities alongside its ancient meaning of heaven and earth joined.

An old, widespread symbol

The six-pointed star, formed by two interlocking triangles, predates the Jewish people and appears across many ancient cultures. It is widely read as representing the union of heaven and earth, or of male and female principles of the divine, with humanity understood as arising from that union — a meaning closely related to the union of opposites the cross is also said to represent within the same set of traditions.

Six qualities, in the Santo Daime reading

Within Santo Daime, the star's six points are associated with six qualities understood as marking right relationship with the church and with oneself: love and kindness, practiced as a deliberate virtue rather than simply felt; reverence toward people, objects, animals, and the forces of nature; a disciplined attention to beauty and self-correction; resilience through the changes of life; commitment and loyalty to one's word; and an integrity that resists easy corruption.

The founding vision

According to the tradition's account of its own founding, Raimundo Irineu Serra, later known as Master Irineu, experienced a vision during an extended fast near the Amazonian border of Brazil, in which he saw the moon approach him with an eagle at its center, and within it a female spiritual figure he later identified as the Queen of the Forest and Our Lady of Conception — understood in the tradition as the Virgin Mary.

The same shape elsewhere

The same interlocking-triangle form appears in Hindu tradition as a yantra known as the satkona or sadkona, read there as the meditative balance achieved between the human and the divine. In that reading, the downward triangle stands for Shakti, the feminine principle, and the upward triangle for Shiva, the masculine principle, with their union representing the whole of creation — a reading not unlike the way Santo Daime understands its own hexagram as joining complementary forces.